Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice (1902-1984)

I think that there
is a moral to this
story, namely that
it is more important
to have beauty in
one's equations than
to have them fit
experiment. If
Schroedinger had
been more confident
of his work, he
could have published
it some months
earlier, and he
could have published
a more accurate
equation. It seems
that if one is
working from the
point of view of
getting beauty in
one's equations, and
if one has really a
sound insight, one
is on a sure line of
progress. If there
is not complete
agreement between
the results of one's
work and experiment,
one should not allow
oneself to be too
discouraged, because
the discrepancy may
well be due to minor
features that are
not properly taken
into account and
that will get
cleared up with
further development
of the theory.

Scientific
American, May
1963

Diophantus

[His epitaph.]This tomb hold Diophantus Ah, what a marvel! And the tomb tells scientifically the measure of his life. God vouchsafed that he should be a boy for the sixth part of his life; when a twelfth was added, his cheeks acquired a beard; He kindled for him the light of marriage after a seventh, and in the fifth year after his marriage He granted him a son. Alas! late-begotten and miserable child, when he had reached the measure of half his father's life, the chill grave took him. After consoling his grief by this science of numbers for four years, he reached the end of his life.

In Ivor Thomas Greek Mathematics, in J. R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956.

De Sua, F. (1956)

Suppose we loosely define a religion as any discipline whose foundations rest on an element of faith, irrespective of any element of reason which may be present. Quantum mechanics for example would be a religion under this definition. But mathematics would hold the unique position of being the only branch of theology possessing a rigorous demonstration of the fact that it should be so classified.